The Chosen and the Beautiful

Jordan Baker is the protagonist and narrator of Nghi Vo’s novel. She is based on an ancillary character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, who is a professional golfer, narrator Nick’s love interest, and a vital source for describing Gatsby and Daisy’s past. While Fitzgerald’s Jordan is slender, athletic and “the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee” (Fitzgerald 180), the deep skin tone of Vo’s Jordan stems from her Vietnamese ethnicity. Adopted from Tonkin (Vietnam) by Miss Eliza Baker, Jordan must navigate the white worlds of Louisville and New York high society as a person of color. Epitomizing the theme of The Other as Outsider, Jordan quickly learns that while she is brought up in the same milieu as Daisy, her ethnicity means that she cannot enjoy the same advantages, and so must determine a course of action that differs from that of her sheltered, pampered peers. When a dynastic marriage is closed to her, Jordan experiments with men and women, evoking the theme of Sexual Fluidity. Her immaculate, sporty sense of style, sexual confidence, and ability to come up with witty reposts to the racist comments made by characters like Tom, enable her to pass relatively harmoniously through white society, even if she will never be truly part of it.